I have had a hectic weekend. My family and I flew to Denmark on Friday for a very important coffee meeting. It all went well, then we met up with some friends who had come over from Malmo, Sweden to go to the Justin Bieber concert on that night. We arrived at our hotel and there were hundreds of teenage and under girls milling around. Yes JB was saying at our hotel!

We have basked in sunshine for the last couple of days in London, and then I look at my garden and think of all the work I have to do, the ravages of winter have certainly taken their toll. Hey ho!

I played around with the dress form Pop n' Cuts and the framelits dies. What fun, these are. Reminds of my childhood when I played with paper dolls.

You can add as much bling or as little as you want. Add a handbag made from the cup cake and circle punch. I love the touch of the pearl necklace.
This is my favourite, I love red, white and  black together.

Then I cheated and CASE'd an idea from Stamp with Bernie
It is the idea for the mens workshop I particularly liked. A bit fiddly, but I got there in the end!

£25/€35 More for FREE

£25/€35 More for FREE

Stampin' Up! have announced that from now until 30 May you can get an extra £25/€35 worth of goodies FREE should you join Stampin' Up! or host a qualifying party.

Join my team now and you get to choose £155/ €35 worth of Stampin' Up! products for £99/€129. Contact me for more information.

For those of you who would like to host a party in your own home or craft club, or have a catalogue party where you simply collect orders, then you too could receive an additional £25/ €35 worth of product FREE if the total order (excluding p & p) comes to £250/ €350 or more. This is on top of your normal Hostess Benefits. This means you would receive a whopping £65/ €80 worth of FREE product should the orders total £250/€350.

If you are interested in hosting a party (or having a catalogue party) don't leave it to the last minute to book a party and miss out on this fabulous offer. The offer runs out 30 May, so contact me to get that date in your diary.

 You can dress up our beautiful craft boxes, a bit of fabric, a label and there you go! The flower is made using our Creped Filter Paper, cut out with a Floral Frames Framelit and scrunched up. Quite effective!

I want to share what we did at training.
Using the 'For the Record Simply Scrappin' Layout Kit, we made cards! Yes, using only the papers and die cuts supplied we made 7 cards. Of course you can use the papers for scrapbooking but not everyone is a scrapbooker.

This kit sells for only £8.95 and I still have stuff left over, but will have to add cardstock to make more cards! This kit is from the Spring/Summer Catalogue so is only available until 30 June 2013

The inspiration from the next project comes from Andrea Walford of Canada. 

 We had an acetate box, which we added a belly band, and made 5 cards using the Oh Hello stamp set and the Tea for Two Designer Series Paper. This is one of my favourite  papers, it has beautiful colours and designs. I just love So Saffron and Lucky Limeade. It will be sad to see Lucky Limeade go, as it is my favourite green, it is not included in the Colour Refresh!

We had our team training on Saturday and  we were spoilt for swaps.

Jackie, Christine and Gill

 Fiona,Carolyn, Paula and Pat

Teresa, Stephanie-Emma, Rebecca, and Teej

Thanks to everyone for making it so enjoyable

STAMPIN UP! COLOUR REFRESH

  Stampin’ Up!  announces a bit of a change in the colour line up. Straight from SU:   Announcing our Colour Refresh! We love colour and we know that you do too. Colour is fundamental to who we are and what we offer. It’s important for us to stay up-to-date with colour trends so we are thrilled to share our updated line of colours, and hope you will be as excited as we are by the new possibilities! Why now? In 2010 we did a big colour renovation and shared our plans for smaller colour refreshes every three to five years to keep our colours on trend. Well it has been three years and we are excited to announce that the upcoming 2013–2014 annual catalogue will include 10 new colours (most of which are returning In Colours from previous years)! We are welcoming back some of your favourites, moving some colours around, and introducing four brand-new colours, so take a look!

Beginning on April 4, 2013, all retiring/discontinued colour products (i.e. ink, paper, ribbon, accessories, etc.) will be available only while supplies last. This means that some products will not be available through the retired list period.

If you have a favourite ink pad or paper, you will need to order your reinkers and paper supply NOW! Email me or contact me by phone to put in your orders.

We have a training session this Saturday and have to make swaps. This is my swap.
I had a lot of fun doing this. I used as basic cardstock Primrose Petals. The stamped images are from 'Fruit and Flowers' and the flower from Blossom Party Orignals die cut. I stamped in Primrose Petals and Crumb Cake and used Primrose Petals, Bashful Blue and Vellum for the large flower held together witha button from the Vintage Faceted designer Buttons.

The sentiment is from 'Word Play'.

The Petite Curly Label Punch that you saw in the Sale-a-Bration brochure is now available to purchase.

If you thought you might have missed out on this one, you were wrong. Stampin Up! has brought it back and it will be in the next catalogue.

If you would like to place an order for one of these very  versatile punches email me at nickyjohncock@yahoo.co.uk

  

My favourite technique at the moment is reverse masking.

Normally I make a mask of a stamped image. However I decided to use  punches here. Stampin Up! has some lovely punch designs. I have settled for the scallop circle, heart and the blossom punch. It is best to use copy paper for the mask as you want it  to be thin in order to get a clearer outline.

So instead of using the image we punched out we use the surround. Position your mask where you want it on your cardstock, use Post-It notes to keep in place and to cover up any white areas you don't want inked.

I sponge or brayer ink onto the cardstock through the mask. Once you have enough colour on, you can leave it in place and ink up a stamp a shade darker and stamp onto the masked image.
Stamps that have a lot of detail, ie writing 'En Francais' or flowers 'Betsy's Blossoms' are ideal for this.

The card on the left uses the Bigz Die 'Autumn Accents'

I have sponged 3 colours So Saffron, Certainly Celery and Cajun Craze.. Then I stamped several times the words from 'French Foliage' in Cajun Craze.
I finished off with a strip of twill tape and some Naturals Designer buttons threaded with linen thread and a sentiment.